The NBA’s annual awards show was on Monday night, and for the most part, there weren’t any huge surprises in the winners. James Harden won the MVP, which has been evident for most of the 2017-18 NBA campaign, and while there was some debate for Rookie of the Year and Coach of the Year, no one was shocked when Ben Simmons or Dwane Casey were announced the winners.
The official voting numbers were released on Tuesday, giving fans the opportunity to look at how voting broke down for everything. This was a little more surprising, especially when it came to Simmons’ win over Donovan Mitchell for Rookie of the Year. Here’s how each award broke down:
Coach of the Year
Casey winning might be a touch controversial with how his tenure ended in Toronto, but for the most part, this looks about right. It’s interesting that Stevens got the second-most first-place votes, but Snyder was still able to finish in second place. Also, it’s always fun to see where Popovich lands, because he’s the best coach in basketball, and this year, he finished in eighth.
Defensive Player of the Year
This one’s pretty easy: Gobert is an outstanding defender and anchors an outstanding Jazz defense. Boom. Embiid was outstanding defensively this year and is a deserved runner up. The rest is all very much up for interpretation, because praising defensive excellence is always something that is up for interpretation among voters.
Sixth Man of the Year
Another simple one. Lou Will and Gordon were, unquestionably, the two-best sixth men the NBA had to offer, so they were shoe-ins to come in first and second. It is cool to see VanVleet, who was fantastic as the leader of the Raptors’ second unit, get a first-place vote and a third-place finish.
Most Improved Player
It’s almost surprising that Oladipo didn’t win this one unanimously, as he went from looking like a disappointing second overall draft pick to an absolute star with the Indiana Pacers. Capela was a revelation for the Rockets this year, while Dinwiddie was quietly great for the Nets, but still, Oladipo was the easy answer here.
Rookie of the Year
Here’s the biggest surprise in all the voting. Simmons deserved to win the award, surely, but all the discussion surrounding the award was that there was such a narrow gap between the Sixers’ star and Mitchell. Both players were outstanding, and while it’s not hard to make the case that Simmons was better, there were a number of people who made the case that his “redshirt” season last year disqualified him for the award.
In the end, we got our occasional reminder that online is not real life, and we learned that the award voters did indeed view Simmons as a rookie. At least Mitchell got a pretty sweet hoodie out of the whole thing.
Most Valuable Player
Harden’s MVP award was a long time coming, and for much of the year, Houston’s star guard was viewed as the guy who was going to eventually lift the trophy. James and Davis both earned their spots in the top-3, but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t expect Harden to be the winner.
